Cover cropping is a strategy used by many growers , both large- and small - scale , to better the soil without the purpose of chemical substance . back craw offer your garden many benefits , ranging from scale down erosion and compaction to increased fertility and ground constitutive matter , and dissimilar types of cover crops serve dissimilar design : Legumes , for example , advance atomic number 7 in your grunge while rootage crop break up clayey soils . Although cover crop do n’t traditionally end up on the dinner party tabular array , every bit of space thing when garden on a small lot , so study selecting your blanket craw for a lowly purpose , like food for thought or herbal remedies . Here are a few cover crop that can do double - obligation , enriching your soil while putting food and herbs in your kitchen .
1. Buckwheat
covert - harvest Purpose : increase filth constituent matter , suppress mourning band , draw in pollinators and good insects
treble - duty Use : buckwheat fourpence to utilise in porridge or to grind into flour
How to acquire : According to writer Sara Pitzer inHomegrown Whole Grains(Storey Publishing , 2009 ) , flora buckwheat two to three month before your last - frost date to ensure it goes to seed before the frost kills it but that it does n’t go to seed during the hottest weather . It care to develop where it ’s warm and sunny in acidic arenaceous or loamy dirt , though it will still grow under less idealistic conditions .
Use a broadcast broadcaster to plant seeds in weed - destitute dirt at a rate of about 1/4 pound per 100 straight feet . Rake over the soil to thinly address the seeds .
harvest home for Food and Soil : Harvesting buckwheat groats — aka , the seed — while keep the buckwheat industrial plant for its cover - craw benefits is a challenge . If you were harvesting buckwheat primarily as a nutrient craw , you ’d cut down the whole plant and remove it from the garden . But in this character , you desire to reap just the seeds and allow for the whole flora in the garden so you could contain the industrial plant into the soil as a fleeceable manure . InSmall - Scale Grain Raising(Chelsea Green Publishing Company , 2009 ) , source Gene Logsdon says you could strip the plants of their seed just using your finger . This is a realizable method for small harvests but can become pretty slow if you are after something more than a few quarts at a time .
Watch Out!Buckwheat is fertile , so allow the covering craw to go to seed mean some seeds will drop and create voluntary that will want to be weeded out the following grow time of year .
2. Red Clover
covering - harvest Purpose : fix nitrogen , break up hard soil , raise ground organic mater , suppress weeds , attract pollinators and beneficial insects
Double - duty Use : red clover prime tea ( considered a blood purifier )
How to Grow : Red trefoil grows well in regions where corn whisky thrives and it prefers cooler condition . engraft it in well - drain , neutral - to - acid ( 6.0 to 7.2 pH ) soils by broadcast the seed and encompass the seminal fluid gently with soil using a rake . Use 1/4 Lebanese pound of seed per 1,000 square feet .
Harvesting for Food and filth : Harvest blood-red trefoil heyday early in the good morning , while they are still wet with dew . dry out them on a screen or hanging in a dry place . Only the flowers are used in herbal medicine , so the rest of the plant will remain in your garden as a concealment craw . If you’re able to wait to incorporate red clover into the soil until mid - efflorescence in the spring of its second year , you ’ll get the most nitrogen in the soil , but you’re able to till it into the dirt as greenish manure at any time and still see benefit .
catch Out!Once red clover has been pollinated , its flowers will start to die . harvesting flush when they are in full flower but do n’t have any brown areas .
3. Daikon Radish
masking - harvest Purpose : break up soil , suppress weeds , add filth nutrients , lure flea beetles away from other crop
Double - duty Use : daikon radishes and radish greens
How to develop : Plant a daikon radish cover harvest at a rate of five seeds per solid foot so the radish greens can shade off out skunk . Broadcast seeds and lightly cover them with soil using a rake .
Daikon radishes can tolerate light Robert Frost but nothing colder , so plant with an middle on your variety ’s days to maturity and your area ’s first - icing engagement . They need to grow at least six calendar week to be a beneficial concealment crop .
harvest for Food and Soil : With daikon ’s 1 - base - plus taproot drilling into compacted soil , this radish ’s elementary back - crop function is grease aeration . Once the radish is originate , it can be harvested and eaten . savvy the cat valium at the top of the root , and pluck the rootage from the earth . Leave unharvested radishes in the garden to stay to provide their other benefits , and incorporate these before you ’re quick to implant in that space again .
Watch Out!If reap when too old , daikon radish can be woody and bitter . make up attention to the days to maturity on your seed label . Also , rot radishes are stinky , so if you have a freeze and then a warm thawing , you might call for to do some fast garden cleanup .
4. Canadian Field Peas (or Spring Peas)
Cover - harvest Purpose : fix nitrogen , build territory constitutional matter
duple - duty Use : untested pea plant shoots for salads and steaming
How to Grow : Field pea like a coolheaded growing season and are frost - patient of . They can grow in well - drained , mildly acidulent ( pH of 5.5 to 6.5 ) soils .
Harvesting for Food and Soil : Young pea plant shoots can be harvested for run through pretty much as soon as they appear great enough to eat . They will become tough with age , so get them before they hand 8 inches . One to two weeks before set again in that area , mow and till the field peas . The Cornell University Cooperative Extension says this meter form will forestall nutrient being tied up while the pea plant are being incorporated into the soil .
keep an eye on Out!Do not plant field peas as a cover charge crop in close-fitting rotation with other leguminous plant because field pea are especially susceptible to root rot nematode .
Do n’t leave cover cropping to the rural farmers . Urban soil can benefit just , as well . With careful variety selection , you may get the most from your garden ’s cover crop .
